Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis’s move to ask offices to let employees leave early on the day Mumbai was flooded last week has come under intense scrutiny. Even some senior bureaucrats concede that the move had resulted in a lot more people coming out on the flooded streets, making it more challenging to rescue those already stranded. While the floods exposed how various city agencies work in silos, tales abound of how all five IAS officers in the Mumbai municipality had stationed themselves in the civic disaster control room on that day, and how a deputy municipal commissioner was forced to face the brunt of the media.
The Sena Factor
The row over the government’s allegations against Justice A S Oka that he was biased against the state machinery on the issue of noise pollution has turned out to be a personal embarrassment for Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. But it is now learnt that political compulsions may well have forced Fadnavis’s stand. The CM was apparently getting increasingly wary of the Shiv Sena politicising the issue if restrictions had to be imposed on Ganeshotsav processions owing to the court’s ruling on silence zones. With the government’s strategy in this regard backfiring, there is also a debate on who had advised the government over the issue.
Running Feud
There are murmurs of discontent in the bureaucracy over the chief minister’s move to transfer Sunil Kendrekar from the agriculture commissioner’s post. The 2002-batch IAS officer, who has earned the reputation of being a no-nonsense bureaucrat, had assumed the charge barely three months ago, and had made quite an impression during his short stint. But the grapevine is that the minister heading the department, Pandurang Fundkar, had a running feud with the bureaucrat over the latter’s decision to ban a particular variety of Bt cotton seed that is popular in the Vidarbha belt. He felt Kendrekar had overstepped his line while taking the decision without consulting him. It is also learnt that the company’s representatives had approached the CMO against the ban.
The ‘Outsiders’
EVEN AS debate persists over the government’s inaction against those overstaying in official residences, tales abound of how two high-profile civil servants have been permitted to occupy lavish apartments in the MMRDA’s residential building in Bandra Kurla Complex. Even as the apartments are solely meant for senior MMRDA officials, sources say, an IFS officer closely related to a senior BJP minister, and an IPS officer — neither has anything to do with the MMRDA — have been allotted apartments in the building.
A Swap
A year after he left the CMO, Rajesh Narvekar has been brought back. The IAS officer, who was the CEO of the Raigad Zilla Parishad, has been reinstated as a Joint Secretary in the CMO where he would replace Kailash Shinde, who has been recently inducted into the IAS service. Shinde has been posted as the CEO of the Satara Zilla Parishad. Sources say while Narvekar had sought a transfer to Mumbai for personal reasons, the CMO was keen on continuity following Shinde’s exit.
Legal Matters
BJP’s Minister of State (Social Justice) Dilip Kamble has said the government will try to engage top lawyer Harish Salve to challenge a Bombay High Court verdict against reservation for promotions in government jobs. While the HC has discontinued such reservation, the BJP camp fears a political backlash owing to it. So, it has decided to move the Supreme Court against it.
(Compiled by Sandeep Ashar)